hello Coffee_guy. Well lets see the first qualification that a good teacher should have is a strong knowledge of what they are trying to teach.
Second would be good communication skills. Third would be the ability to analyze there student and choose the proper techniques to get that information they have over to there student.
I thought it might be amusing to list some signs of a really *bad* piano teacher. This is my experience of having lessons from a failed concert pianist when I was 14.- He cancelled lessons because "I feel too fat today."- He would not actually look at me playing the piano, but instead sat some distance away in an armchair, calling out unhelpful little corrections... "faster"... "trill with more notes"...- He'd set me completely inappropriate repertoire probably for his own amusement. Struggling with grade 8 pieces? Some Stravinsky will sort you out - Three Movements from Petrushka! Three months later: "I think this piece might be a bit too difficult for you..."- He was a pretty horrible pianist himself. He'd neglected his technique for decades and mostly played sentimental arrangements of Chinese folk songs.- He had a herd of little dogs that filled his apartment with their yapping and doggie smells.OK, I will answer on topic a bit later!
Can you play through your pieces by memory without problems? What is your practice schedule like? 2.5 on week days - 3.5 – 4 I have been playing the piano for exactly 10 months. I also took a semester of keyboarding in college and 1 year of electronic music in high school. I have played guitar and drums for 16 years. I am 30. What's the content of your practice sessions?Scales & arpeggios, Hanon, Chords, Songs How many pieces are you working on?2-3 a month – I self-select my pieces, my teacher rarely seems to care about this. I have a friend who is classically trained and has been suggesting level 2-3 pieces for me. I have done one level 4 piece as well. What are your goals and requirements, immediate and otherwise?I already play guitar and drums, I want to start recording my own music and get to Grade 5 on piano. These are longer term goals.Short term goal is to improve my sight reading and Do you show up to all of your lessons on time?Early every time, wait in the warm-up room until he gets me. Do you know your scales and arpeggios?Every single scale there is? I know my major scales. On guitar I know many more. Do you sleep with your music under your pillow?NeverWhen's your most effective practice time during the day? In the evening or anytime on weekendsHow long do you function effectively while practicing?45 minutes, an hour at most. How big a priority is piano in your life?Music is my favorite hobby. I would be upset if I stopped played music or piano. If you had all the time in the world, what would be your ideal practice schedule/number of hours? How would you use *that* time?4 hours dailyWhat are you prepared to sacrifice for studying?My left testicle. Who are some of your favorite composers?Schumann, Bach, John Williams, Joe Sanders Who are some of your favorite performers?The Clash, Billy Bragg Do you ever cancel your lessons?No, but I want to quit my lessons. What's your best working environment?No clueHow many questions do you think I could ask you?Too many
well, my teacher is very talented, I have no doubt about that. I do have some doubts about their ability to teach in an effective way.I feel like my lessons are all over the map (from week to week) Also, there have been times where I have asked for feedback on songs (and gotten the reply, "it sounds good to me") avoiding any real critique or suggestions on how I can approve it. I know I am not that good!I am always told (by my teacher) that I am progressing very quickly and to just keep doing what I am a doing... fine I guess, but sometimes I wonder if my progress is due to the amount of hard work and hours I have put in and nothing else. I guess I am sounding ungrateful, I mean, I am learning piano... I just hope it's the best possible way, and that is hard to know if you have no comparison.
hmmm very interesting post. Progress is always the result of your hard work and hours of practice. If you have doubts--they are probably accurate and it would not hurt to check out another teacher. No teacher has all the answers and I am not sure that a "best possible way" exists--and if it does it is certainly not the same "way" for everyone. A basis for comparison is always a good thing. You are responsible for your music education ultimately--not your teacher.
That is just ludicrous to tell me to play 14 scales my first week back and sight read out of a book with no direction. Now that is not a good teacher!
Perhaps you feel mostly that it was out of touch with you as a student?
If your goal is simply to learn to play the piano with some mild degree of skill that is one thing. If on the other hand your goal is to pursue a professional career in music, then it becomes important to have a teacher who knows the right people, the right recitals, the important competitions, good connections at some major conservatories.
Glad you're here - however, this is spoken like ultimate words of wisdom, and while there is wisdom within it and truth, it is extremely age-specific, not necessarily musically-developed-specific. Almost none of this would hold the same water for a 3-teenager yr. old. And, while the OP may indeed be an adult in human years, in musical/student years this is a different story, actually, and one of the biggest things that can get in the way of an adult student's progress with a teacher is thinking "I am an adult, I know best (or "should" know best since I'm an adult) and I expect this this and this." That is not to say intellect and pragmatism shouldn't be employed because they should, but the entire situation here revolves around a musically young student, regardless of human age. So, yes, as adults there are faculties of reasoning and observation that can work in our favor beyond what younger humans may have, but just because you are doubting something doesn't mean your doubts are true! And, just because we all have to be the one to put in the individual work and that's the bottom line for everybody, doesn't mean that an adult is more "responsible" for their own education any more than a 3 year old would be! We all learn through experience and being an adult doesn't make somebody automatically musically wise! That's the whole point! While teachers may or may not have a fuller perspective on an individual in personal ways, and while a teacher may or may not make all of the "right" decisions, it's perfectly acceptable, I believe, to be able to depend on a teacher's perspective as being fuller than a student's and that, yes, there is a certain point to that where the student must be willing to trust in the teacher's greater perspective. As people, we are ultimately responsible for our own sense of values and ability to survive, but as we are growing into that it's ultimately considered acceptable to have loving parents in one's life who can be relied upon in profound ways. Metaphorically, I believe much relates to developing as a musician.
lol--sorry m1469. I was addressing the OP--who is an adult, and may not be musically developed but still has the right to choose his own teacher. If he has doubts, maybe checking out a new teacher will alleviate some of them, that's all I meant. not really sure what I said that upset you but I didn't mean to sound like a "soothsayer" again. lol. I know you don't like it when I do that. ha ha I will strive to be more humble in these strings. You have a valid point there...
in my path -- I tended to blame my obstacles in learning to those who taught me. It was never me who did not practice or pay attention--it was a poor teacher. Sure she assigned theory and technique--i just never did it. When I got to college I was told it was my earlier teacher's fault that I had obstacles--until a professor explained in no uncertain terms that ultimately I was responsible for learning as an adult what I had failed to learn as a child--for whatever reason. forgive me m1469--I did not explain my words very well.
Sounds like you learned how to listen to your teacher.
I wonder if coffee-guy is still around? If so:Some of your situation sounds similar to things that I came in with in my first lessons as an adult. You already had a smattering of skills from playing other instruments. And maybe you were also self-taught in those other instruments? This was my situation. What I knew was all over the place, and I seemed to know some things when I didn't actually have the underpinnings, but that wasn't always apparent. The new instrument I took up was violin, where you don't have a keyboard's pile of notes. Example: I would take home the sheet music and come back playing it, so nobody knew that I didn't really know notes. Or I would put expression into my playing since as an amateur I have always done that with music, but it was however I could - I had no idea about technique. All the things that people who have had lessons with decent teachers know, I had never experienced: learning note names, how to approach pieces in practicing, that technique is a particular focus and gets developed gradually. At the same time, I seemed to have these things in some measure, because I was coming back playing new music I'd been assigned expressively. Once I hit the intermediate level it bit me in the rear, because I didn't have the skills to support me. That is, I am musically enough that I wanted to do something with these pieces, and I couldn't. My lessons started flopping around at that stage - a similar feeling of trying to find direction - like what you are describing. The solution was to finally talk it out with my teacher and set totally different goals. It's possible that there may be some answers for you in all this.My conclusion for me is that what my lessons have to be about is not getting pieces to sound nice, but getting underlying skills and knowledge going from the bottom up. There can be pieces, of course. In fact, how do we do music without pieces? But underneath it all, there should be an underlying order, where I will be learning skill 1, skill 2, skill 3 (not rigidly). When I practice at home, that is what I focus on. When I go to a lesson, that is part of what my teacher listens for. Additionally, I need to know how to get this skill, and how to put it into my pieces. How do I practice it? How do I organize it over the day, and over the week? What am I aiming for? The reason I say "from the bottom up" is because it is too hard to figure out what I do and don't know, so the safest thing is to just get at each thing from scratch. Even if I do have it, it may not be the best way to go about things.An important thing here is that the goals are actually out in the open. You cannot just come to lessons and hope that your teacher will aim for such things. He won't know what your goals are - it might be that you just want to mostly work on pieces for the sake of pieces, because many older students want that. The things that you can do might hide what you cannot do, or maybe whatever way you have developed in winging it seems good enough. If it's not defined, then things just won't happen. Like, in your posts, you write about learning to sight read. Is this an actual goal that has been set up with your teacher? And if there are other things that support sight reading like maybe theory or whatever, is that set up? Strategies for getting there?It's after that, that you can start talking about good teachers, because if the teacher cannot help you with those goals, then this would not be a good teacher for you. Supposing that he only knows how to say "This piece sounds ok.", "The middle part is sloppy (but I can't tell you how to fix it.)" or "Remember that it's F# in measure 7." - I mean, only gives that kind of feedback on pieces, and can't do more - that's not enough. But you can't tell about a teacher if the goals aren't out in the open first.
Topic: What are the signs of a really good teacher? 